plusandrew

So, my older camaro had crusty headlights, and I did some research and tried to find some ways to clean them, but unfortunately, nothing worked.


But this time around, my lights weren't as crusty, and I actually had some *decent* results, but I'm going to play around with more stuff tomorrow.


before:


after:

all I used was meguiars clear plastic cleaner and polish.

buffed on and buffed off about 4 coats of cleaner then 2 coats of polish. Not really like new, but a pretty big improvement.

I want to try mothers aluminum polish after I sand them down with 2000 grit sandpaper, but I dont know if I want to risk ruining them or not because I have this gut feeling they are going to just get cloudy.

Brangeta

The idea of sanding them makes me nervous too. I've had people tell me to clean our CME with steel wool and I'm not dumb enough to try it. Steel wool on polished cast aluminum? Not a good idea IMO....

I'd try everything before getting out the sand paper bro.

plusandrew

well, I tried coating them in aluminum polish and buffing it out, and it really smoothed out the surface, so I'm thinking I can sand off all the crusted crap, then smooth it all with the aluminum polish and then seal it with the plastic polish.


only thing is, I don't know how long those polished fibers are going to stay on my headlights.

REDBULL

It might just be an old wives tale, but I heard somewhere that you can get the headlight haze out by using toothpaste. Good Luck!

2000GTP

Judging from the pics, they appear to look alot better. Maybe just leave them be.

sbca96

Mine were crusty, yellowed. I heard about the 2000 grit and the plastic
polish so I did one of them to see. It works! Polishing alone will work if you
can take enough material off. Toothpaste might also work. Basically you
are removing the outer baked plastic. I used 1500 paper, and then 2000 to
smooth it out. Washed well, dried and polished.

Before:





After sanding, but before polish :



I dont have the after polishing pictures up on my FTP yet. Sorry.

Tom

MeenZ28

Sorry Bro, they dont look that much better...

plusandrew

I wetsanded my old headlights on a camaro I no longer have and they didnt look much better, I'm going to try and use toothpaste though.

copboy736

I was wanting to clean mine up too. I tried wet sanding with 2000 grit and it came out worse then they started. I tried toothpaste...it worked ok, but they were still cloudy. I have looked for answers and found several kits you can buy that are supposed to clean it up.
I am thinking about getting this, but just dont know if it is worth the money yet....

http://www.autogeek.net/plastik-lens-cleaning.html

Roach02

yeah, use 2000 grit and then polish them back out

plusandrew

I tried toothpaste, did nothing once they dried.

heres everything I've tried:

meguiars plastic cleaner
meguiars plastic polish
mothers aluminum polish
meguiars scratch X
toothpaste
wetsanding (old headlights, thank god I dont have them anymore )


and none of those have lasted longer than 30 minutes.

I'm going to try and find 3 step novus next.

Brangeta

Well, let us know what ends up working. My Corolla has the crusty headlights and I wouldn't mind doing something to them if it actually worked.

plusandrew

Im thinking about ordering the 3 step novus kit sometime this week.

Critter

what he said, its chips, bug guts, and weather wear. sand it and polish it with a cutting compound. its not going to hurt anything. people do this with paint (wetsanding, color sanding) so trust me it will be fine with plastic.

Critter

i just read this. you just wetsanded them and they still look back? are you sure its not on the inside? after you take of the top layer of plastic and buff it it should be as good as new?

if there is moisture on the inside of the lense you can drill a SMALL hole on the bottom of the lense and it will get rid of it once you run the lights for a while.